() — Elon Musk revealed on Twitter on Saturday that due to a 50% drop in ad revenue and a “huge load of debt,” the platform is still cash flow negative.
The billionaire owner he tweeted on saturdayin response to a follower’s business advice: “I need to get cash flow positive before I have the luxury of anything else.”
The tweet is in stark contrast to his tone in April, when Musk told him told the BBC that the platform is now “more or less at breakeven” and that most of its advertisers have returned.
Ad revenue has been a contentious issue and an uphill battle for the site, after hordes of advertisers fled after Musk took over. Advertisers were concerned about content moderation, mass layoffs, and general uncertainty about the future of Twitter.
Linda Yaccarino, a former marketing executive for NBCUniversal, recently took over the CEO position that Musk had and is likely betting on his ad expertise to bring them back.
The New York Times reported that Twitter’s US ad revenue for the five weeks from April 1 through the first week of May was down 59% year-over-year, citing an internal filing. ( has not seen the presentation.)
Just 43% of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers as of September, the month before Musk’s acquisition, were still advertising on the platform as of April, according to data provided to by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. last month.
“It’s definitely been extremely difficult,” Musk said at the Twitter Spaces livestream event Musk hosted with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. last month. “Basically, our income is cut in half because we don’t meet the requirements.” He added that it has been a “big fight for Twitter to break even.”
And, after its rival app, Threads by Meta, surpassed 100 million downloads less than a week after its launch, Twitter is under more pressure.
Musk incorporated a variety of cost-cutting or cash-seeking measures into the site, from giving blue checkmarks with a Twitter Blue membership to putting Tweetdeck behind a paywall.
Twitter announced on Thursday that content creators could get a share of the site’s ad revenue, ostensibly to encourage more creators to join the site. To be eligible, creators must have Twitter Blue and have at least 5 million impressions on their posts in each of the last three months.
Among the creators now monetizing off of Twitter: Andrew Tate, the self-proclaimed “misogynist” influencer, who was accused in Romania of human trafficking, rape and creation of a criminal gang charges.
did not receive comment from Twitter.
– ‘s Clare Duffy contributed to this report.
